A work in progress

I’m not doing well, there’s this dizziness that makes it impossible to function.  And such extreme weakness that most of the time I can’t sit up.  Fortunately one of the people I turn to for help, who does acupuncture among other things, says I don’t need to function, that this is part of the healing process.  I’m so thrilled.

The Husband helped me stack pillows because my hands aren’t up to the job, and I can’t support myself even to type on the iPad.

I am not feeling sorry for myself, my attitude is great given my situation.  I hope this woman is right and that this is a part of the healing process.  *sigh*. Otherwise… it’s a good thing I’ve started to get rid of things, to clear my decks as it were.

Anyway, that’s why I have been least-in-sight.  In the meantime here’s a poem I’ve been working on.  Not finished, but what ever is?

A brain

A finger and a brain 

An iPad, a finger and a brain 

It’s all I need 

Except

Two hands to plump the pillows

And dexterity and balance

Filling a water glass

Fortunately they don’t have to be mine

And faith

Lots and lots of faith.

Philosophy

One hand.

Sometimes I type with one hand.

Or like today,

With one finger.

My thoughts,

Which used to rush out

Like a river in full flood 

Stayed only by the speed 

At which my fingers could 

Fly across the keyboard.

My thoughts

Come much slower now

And deeper

With persistence.

After the dentist…

I wanted to post photos.  I wanted to write status updates and poetry.  Instead I’ve been studying Hebrew, knitting, and going to the dentist.  I’ve spent the most time on the first two, but the most energy on the last.  I’m not done.  That was the least of it, losing it and crying, and clinging to The Husband’s hand.  Over filling a small cavity.  What will I do for the big one, when I have to sit in the chair for an hour while he fixes a root canal gone bad?

I was horribly abused by a dentist when I was a child.  Hitting me over the head with steel instruments when I squirmed or cried was the least of it.  If that was all I would go and get dental care relatively calmly.  I know because I worked at it for years with a good and patient dentist in the U.S.  Unfortunately, I was not so lucky when I moved with TH and the kids to Israel..  Bad dentist after incompetant dentist (there were a couple of good ones, but my continuing decline in health and a move to the south lost them for me), culminating in the one who drilled directly into a nerve without any anesthetic.  And the clinic staff argued with me ‘oh, we would never do that!’  

The botched root canal my current, good and patient dentist needs to fix is like the sixth tooth I have lost as a result of this bad dentistry.  From filling the wrong cavity to not cleaning a cavity thoroughly before it was filled, to the root canal that needs to be fixed to the tooth I lost because I lost the one below and it just descended into the space – without even mentioning to me that that was something that could happen, it is a wonder I am willing to see a dentist at all.  Leave alone trust him.  But I do.

However, going to the dentist takes a lot of energy, and I haven’t got a lot.  So, I may not be writing very much until this is done.  Sorry.

Places (poetry)

I went to the zoo in Be’er Sheva and took lots of photos.  Instead of sharing them, though, I have a poem that might be almost finished.  So here it is:

I come from a place of ugliness,

     Pain and distrust

     Fear

I live in a place of beauty,

     Yet still in pain

     Faith

It is the same place,

    It’s all in how I look at it

     Love

Sometimes there is no choice.  When I was a kid, life was fear and pain, loneliness.  Back then I had no choice, even though there was one adult on my side.  He’s the reason I’m still here.  Now I have a choice.  Fear and pain are there, but I choose not to participate.  I choose Faith.  And Love.  Life is good today.